Intelliagric: An Intelligent, Integrated Farm Assistant

Abstract

The agricultural sector faces significant pressure to increase food production and efficiency due to a growing global population and climate change. The global population increase necessitates vast food production while available arable land decreases, and climate change exacerbates crop diseases and pests. These pressures are particularly acute in Africa, where agriculture is the economic backbone. Modern technologies present promising opportunities to address these challenges. This project proposes IntelliAgric, an intelligent farm assistant system leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support African small-scale farmers. The IoT design includes soil sensors to monitor critical parameters like nutrients, pH levels, moisture content, and temperature. The system employs Machine Learning, the ConvNeXt architecture for accurate maize disease prediction, a stacked model's architecture for robust market forecasting, and transformer architecture to facilitate data interpretation and conversational interactions, offering farmers precise, context-aware advice, recommendations, and support. The integrated platform, including the e-commerce platform, was developed using the Agile methodology, ensuring flexibility and continuous improvement. Test results indicate potential improvements in disease prediction accuracy and market forecasting, empowering farmers to optimize resource use, enhance sustainability, and increase yields. IntelliAgric contributes to global food security and resilience against climate change by bridging the knowledge gap and providing timely, actionable insights.